Armenia today, on 28 May, marks the Day of the First Republic. Having defeated the Turkish army at Sardarapat on 26 May, the Armenian forces were able to halt the Turkish invasion of Transcaucasia and save Armenia from total annihilation.
From 21 to 29 May 1918, Armenian military formations and the militia confronted on three fronts the Turkish army that had crossed the Arax River. The main grouping had occupied Sardarapat station and was planning to attack and capture Yerevan.
After the victorious battles at Sardarapat and Bash Aparan and the heroic struggle at Karakilisa, on 28 May the Armenian National Council in Tiflis proclaimed Armenia an independent Republic.
The victory allowed the Armenian people to restore in their own homeland the statehood lost nine centuries earlier (some 540 years after the fall of the Cilician state).
The First Republic was founded during a difficult period for the Armenian people, when the tens of thousands of refugees who had escaped the extermination programme, famine and the expansionist policy of the Russian Empire would not afford the state’s leaders the possibility of creating a stable state.
The Republic of Armenia existed for only two years, until 2 December 1920, when units of the 11th Red Army entered Yerevan and the republic was sovietised.
In 1991 the Armenian SSR declared independence, and the parliament established 28 May as a non-working day.
Traditionally, on 28 May the main events take place at Sardarapat, which perpetuates the memory of the heroic sons of the Armenian people who in 1918 halted the Turkish invasion of the country.
Today, owing to the coronavirus pandemic and the state of emergency, entry of vehicles and people to the Sardarapat memorial complex is prohibited.
